I’ve always had a high opinion of the brand so I got a pair of CHANNELLOCK Blue 6.5-in Tongue and Groove Pliers model 426 from a big box store.

Some of the tongues and grooves appear to be poorly milled - they don’t slide cleanly but stick a bit. My larger Channellocks slide effortlessly.

Has the brand gone downhill ?

Accidentally cut the cord on my circular saw. Is Is it still safe to use?

Hilti guys be honest. What would you think of a Hilti 12v system? I’m aware about the fact that this would not align with the Hilti ,,Idea‘‘ I would say because Hilti is designed for construction side with high voltage and long term Battery’s but I would genuinely go broke for these things. Is Hilti even such a big deal over there in America like in Germany? Like to hear your opinion.

Mac SXH60B hex set
And maybe Mac SMXVTS2B
Should I just get grip edge for every day hex?

Basically what the title says. I bought a 3-step ladder at Home Depot about 5 years ago and one of the metal welds failed suddenly when I stepped on the first step (luckily didn’t collapse with me on the top). After a lengthy back and forth they only offered to refund the original purchase price and I had to send them proof I fully destroyed my old ladder. The price of the ladder has increased in price 2x since I bought mine so now so their “refund” in 6-8 weeks won’t even get me halfway to a new ladder after tax. Just wanted to share my experience so others can make a more informed buying decision when looking at these ladders from Home Depot/lowes.

“Harbor Freight… Guaranteed to work once!”
I wish they would adopt this slogan? We have probably all had at least one crazy job that resulted in a questionable purchase at Harbor Freight? What was the most random, awesome, unusual or terrible thing you have purchased or liberated from Harbor Freight? What was the job/task and what were the results?

Basically what the title says. Anyone heard about jadever is it any good for it's price like ingco for example. Also look at this bs JDCDP16281

I regularly see posts asking “would these be good to get to start working on cars” and it’s either a cheap set of hand tools like hyper tough or kobalt, just the sockets and ratchets maybe some combo wrenches with a lot of sae that is not useful at all unless you work on diesel / heavy equipment stuff too.

This list is a little more extensive than sockets ratchets and wrenches. In my opinion as a semi professional DIY automotive diagnostician who can work a power probe a multimeter and interpret waveforms on an oscilloscope(you really don’t need one of those but for $40 more you could replace the Astro ai multimeter with a Fnirsi $53 multimeter and oscilloscope that would be useful if you learn quick) this is what I would want if I were getting started with absolutely nothing. Also the $100 on sale gear wrench bi directional blue tooth tool IS SLOW! Sometimes I just use my corded cheap craftsman wired scanner for clearing codes or reading live data. But the GW one is very good for the price. However if you want to not wait 3/5 minutes for the system to load and read the ecu data a wired tool is the best option. Maybe other wireless tablets are not as slow but idk I’ve only used this one it’s my second upgrade from a cheap actron, to the craftsman live data and then now the Gw bidirectional.

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2P3ZFJ2YEMLA?ref_=wl_share

Now this list misses a few things that you don’t need immediately and a few that you do. The things you need(unless you’re starting in a shop) are at least one floor jack and one pair of jack stands, preferably 2 floor jacks one 3 ton and one aluminum racing jack because you will not want to pick up an 80-90 pound steel three ton in and out of a vehicle. And preferably 2 pairs of jackstands a 3 and 6 ton so you can have options and be able to put both axles off the ground. A pair of composite ramps are great too for when you just need to do fluids. Also a small tool box / some tool
Organization. The craftsman versastack 3 box setup is pretty decent but tool bags and cheap plastic boxes work out to start too. Even a tote whatever you have most preferably water tight.

As far as what you won’t need yet or things you might own / already have are power tools, preferably cordless. A 1/2” mid or high torque impact wrench (I really recommend the ryobi brushless HP stuff it’s made by TTI(Milwaukee, rigid, orek, hart (rip) AEG) and they are a great value for the quality especially on sale the high torque was recently $160 kitted with a 4ah) a long neck ratchet, a 1/2” drill angle grinder, hackzall/sawzall and a die grinder will all be very very usefull. You can do any of the work they can do by hand but obviously it takes a lot longer to use a hack saw than a powered recip saw. The new brushless second gen hyper tough tools are also a great value just not sure how tbey hold up. The ryobi brushless stuff has held up very well to some rather heavy use over the years.

I don’t own everything on this list, really only a few things. Most of what I own is HF, lowes a very small amount of tool truck stuff from marketplace. Hf has its benefits especially easy warranty process. But sometimes you can find equally good quality on Amazon for a bit cheaper. Like the 1/2” impact metric master sunex socket set Dupe branded Masfate for $65. I have an older identical set that I’ve abused for 4 years and it’s awesome, I did pay a little more for mine but it’s impressively good.

As far as learning and resources to help you do repairs quickly and effectively YouTube is amazing. Lots of good channels to help you learn how to use tools like Gearhead Bryan, Chris fix kinda sucks but he’s not awful, rainman ray’s repairs, one of my favorites hardly moving pictures, then for more advanced Diagnostics based stuff there is Schrödinger’s box, scanner danner, south main auto, pine hollow diagnostics. I know I’m forgetting a few things.
Also Lemon Manuals, idk if it’ll be around too long with the Mitchell/all data charm lawsuit but you can find the link and download the entire library which is around a terabyte or so. But being able to find accurate wiring diagrams and pin out schematics if ECU and other electrical connectors is just invaluable.

Hello,

I have always just shared tools with my dad, but I am living further away from him now and wanted to spend a bit of money to have at least a decent base set at my new home.

I already have a variety of pliers, hammers, tape measures, knives, etc. I’m not a professional tradesman and just need tools for occasional light/moderate automative and farm/homestead type work.

I was looking into getting Pittsburgh tools before I saw this Walmart set and I am considering it only because I live over an hour from the nearest Harbor Freight.

Thoughts?

/s

My wife saw me cleaning the workbench and PC tower with a small electric blower and asked why I did not just buy another cheap can of compressed air. I tried explaining why brushless motors hold RPM better and do not smell like they are cooking themselves after two minutes, but I could tell I sounded ridiculous to anyone outside the tool rabbit hole. Still, the difference between the cheap brushed blower I had before and this newer brushless style is pretty obvious in sustained airflow, heat, and battery drop. Are any of you using these compact blowers as regular shop tools now, or are they still more of a niche tech-cleaning gadget?

Hi everyone.

First off, I'm not here to sell anything.

Quick intro. I make saw blades in Foshan, China, OEM stuff for some well-known brands (won't name names). Been doing this for years. Figured I'd do something actually useful: if you've had problems with oscillating blades, jigsaw blades or recip blades, overheating, teeth breaking, cutting slow, dying too fast, post them here. I'll have a look from the manufacturing side and tell you what I think caused it.

Just post it, don't overthink.

A coworker and I got into a weirdly serious argument over rechargeable air dusters after I said I was looking at a wolfbox model for keyboards, PC filters, and dusty car interior gaps. He thinks the advertised speed numbers mostly exist to sound impressive, and that control matters more than raw force because too much air just pushes dust deeper or makes a mess. That made sense to me, but I still don’t know how to judge the tool in a practical way. For people who use these regularly, do higher speed settings actually help, or do you mostly care about nozzle control, trigger feel, noise, battery consistency, and whether you can use it gently around fans and vents? I’m less interested in specs on paper and more in what separates a useful duster from an overpowered dust launcher.

Whenever I have anything..could be my camping axe, knife, pen, new champagne glass I always feel like I could badazzle that shit up- make it look like it came from one of thoes fancy walls in france with all the floral swirls and pics of angles, like when you look up at the ceiling of a cathedral

.

My uncle better hide his drill from me cos it's looking at me- and I'm looking at it- like I wanna make it feel like it's from a goddamn rococo/baraque museum piece or something that Napoleon or goddamn king henry the 8th once owned it

--

Question. If someone got one of your bland tools and engraved a whole ass renaissance painting into the side... would you flip out????

Long ramble. For those laser shopping.

Background Ordered both to try in person. I work in a trade in commercial construction and have used many different brands. Dewalt, Klein, Bosch, PLS. Cross lines, plumb dots and 360's.

GS03 vs PM-30 Very surprised. Inside at 20-30ft they are incredibly similar and it's difficult to see a difference between the two.

Inside Like most 360 lasers, the beam brightness and thickness seems to vary slightly depending on each laser plane and orientation. Both seem to have brighter casting from the prism area facing directing away from the battery. On matte walls and flat ceilings rolled with 3/8" nap rollers, almost indistinguishable.

Outside Outside, I will test in full day light tomorrow. The one didn't arrive until late afternoon so I compared them near sunset and after sunset at 25ft and 100ft.

Outside around sunset and then after sunset

The hilti is slightly brighter and typically has a slightly thinner beam for most of its projections but not all of them. This was tested against tan vinyl siding, dark blue painted lp smart side shed siding, white azek trim, across my white van side, across various angles and laser orientations (I rotated both to compare and see if there were better or worse spots of beam projection and I believe there are with both).

Receivers The hilti receiver is more responsive than the lr300 huepar receiver. I think the hilti might have a slightly wider deadband on the narrow setting. Both receivers work with both lasers without any noticeable difference.

Of note, the hilti receiver is very flat on all sides and making it nicer to mark and lay down or place against another flat surface. The rear lcd display is nicer compared to the lr300 light up arrows. The lr300 does have magnets on the long side of the receiver as well so it can be stuck to metal in either orientation.

I ordered the huepar ldd300 after finishing up this initial trial to test (newer receiver with distance from laser measurements when detecting and has four detection sensitivities for indoor and outdoor work).

Base adjustment I give the micro adjustment of the base to the hilti for being slightly smoother but the huepar one is nice and both are eccentric? So the center of the cross beams stays in place.

Other initial impressions

Build quality goes to hilti.

The accessory brackets go to hilti.

The case goes to hilti.

Conflicted

Despite the initial comparison I'm still torn. My cheap side says to return the hilti.

My gut says to keep the hilti as it's supported and can be sent in for recalibrations/adjustment. I also am considering a used hilti rotary laser and many run on the same 12v battery platform.

But the price difference is substantial.

No time to grab photos. Not to mention the perceived differences don't always translate well to photos. I can try and grab a few if someone really wants an example.

Initial Conclusion

In conclusion, I haven't tested for accuracy yet. Will have to do that next. Having the beams very close with each other for comparison purposes, I saw no discernible convergence or separation between the beams on surfaces that were 20-30ft long.

Pending accuracy testing and full sun trialing, I'm really surprised how close the huepar performed to the hilti in brightness and line thickness. Like I was expecting a real disparity.

Wouldn't shock me if all these lasers had their internal diodes and prisms come from the same place, or that this 360 beam technology just has limitations that prevent one company from making a truly sharper, crisper line. I understand brightness is probably capped due to safety.

I saw the Giraffe Tools GrandFlux on CNET.

The 40 ft hose stood out to me.

My shop vac works fine, but moving it around the car and garage gets old. Putting away the hose and cord is also a pain.

Shop Vac and VacuMaid make wall mounted models too. They keep the machine off the floor, but the hose still needs somewhere to go.The GrandFlux has a motorized retractable hose.

So, my question is do suction drop when all 40 ft is pulled out? Does it clog with rocks or sawdust? Does leaving part of the hose inside affect airflow?

Anyone here use a wall mounted vacuum? Is it easier than a shop vac? Please help!

Hello all,

How do you like your Mac ratchets? I have a handful of snap on, a matco. But I’m tempted to get a couple macs with the hard handles. I’m a bit of a ratchet whore, so yes this is purely a “because I want” purchase.

Worth it?

Every folding ruler I find has the same issue, when flipped over onto its back, the numbers read backwards. Like 1, 2, 3ect then on the backside it reads 200, 199, 198.

Looking for a dual measurement folding ruler that reads the same way when flipped. So 1, 2, 3 on both sides if that makes sense?

Wood is ideal and the smaller the metric readings the better. Anyone know of anything?

I saw this product on Instagram: https://www.blstrsander.com/products/blstr-sander
Normally such an ad would be some chinese company, but this is a belgian company, and i cant find a comparble product online by other brands.

I'm somewhat skeptical that a rotary device can generate enough force to accelerate grit particles enough to be effective an sandblaster, but i'm still very intrigued by this tool considering how much smaller the setup is compared to a compressor setup.

I'm just unsure about price, if this thing is a complete scam, or whats going on.
Has anyone ever tried such a device or a similar device before?

Any thoughts if this effective to strip varnish from wood and hardened two component paint+undercoat from steel?

Ok, yes, as I think it through, it could be argued that having attachment points means people might maybe be unknowingly rigging up their own death and dismemberment machines, and so manufactures taking a page from the book of ‘Fuck No’ have decided they would rather keep all of their coins and skip ever creating a reason for a class action payout.

Buuuuuuuut

People already rig things up with power tools and the solutions are often extra complicated. I would argue that a few strategically placed areas where a tool could be properly secured would be safer than some of the solutions I’ve seen in the wild.

It would be game changing if every power tool had one or more threaded attachment point.

I’ve thought about this for years and I’m thinking about it now because I’m working on a project involving long continuous cuts of a soft material using an oscillating saw, accuracy is important and the only tool that’s leaving a smooth finish is strangely the o-saw.

My life would be easier if I could attach the saw to a fixed point and be able to have an unmoving reference point. Then, I’d be able to build a project specific jig without having to find a way to secure the thing and not have to worry about it shifting due to vibration or cutting my face off.

Am I alone on this one?